Transcript
WEBVTT
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A good company match is a game changer.
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That is a huge game changer.
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I mean, we have friends that have matches, company matches, 6%, 7% now.
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Yeah, I saw somebody on Instagram recently another content person, and they get an 8% match.
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I was like, holy crap, where do you work?
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I need to work there.
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And so what that means is that for every, if you have an 8% match at 100%, that means that for every dollar that you're putting in up to 8% of your salary, your employer is going to contribute that also.
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So you're getting 16%.
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I mean, that's no, it's significant, that's super significant, I would say that is the number one benefit of a 401k plan is if your employer provides a great match, because it is essentially free money.
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Hey babe, what are we talking about today?
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Today we are talking about everything that you need to know when it comes to your retirement plan through your employer.
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So we're talking about 401ks, 403bs and all the information that you should definitely know to make sure that you're maximizing that benefit.
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That is excellent, because having a good 401k plan through your employer can be a total game changer.
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But we want to make sure that you optimize the account and don't just enroll and then never look at it again.
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Because, even though I think obviously most people know what a 401k plan, know what their 403b is, I still think that there's a large number of people who don't fully understand how it functions and all the different details that they need to pay attention to within that plan to make sure that it's tailored towards what they're trying to accomplish and that, like I said, you're maximizing the plan itself, because little newsflash plans do vary from employer to employer.
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There are some things that are, you know, the same across the board, but there are definitely variances in what your 401k plan offers you, based upon the employer that you're at and how much they want to actually put into the plan itself.
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All right.
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So where do you want to start?
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What do people need to know first?
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The first thing that you need to know when you get a new job is do you have to manually enroll into your 401k plan or are you automatically enrolled?
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Also, with that, is there a waiting period before you can actually enroll in the plan?
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Now, I would say that's not normally how I see it in regards to having to wait, but there are still, you know, jobs out there that require you to wait maybe 30, 60, 90 days of being employed before you can actually partake in the 401k plan.
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Okay, what is your experience with people having to enroll themselves manually versus being auto enrolled?
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I would say most people are auto enrolled.
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Normally you have to manually unenroll but upon you know being employed and going through that process, they automatically enroll you into the plan.
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OK, and then, once you're enrolled, what do you need to know?
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So the first thing is like, once you're enrolled, you need to normally set up an online profile so that you can access the 401k plan through whatever provider you have.
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And once you set that online portal, you do want to go in.
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If you are enrolled, the first thing you want to know is hey, how much am I contributing?
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Because if you're automatically enrolled, that means you're also automatically enrolled in a certain percentage to contribute.
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Oh, what's?
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What do they usually set as your contribution when you're auto enrolled?
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I would say that normally, if your employer does provide a match, I would say they normally auto enroll you for the match.
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So that might be a little bit more, it might be a little bit less than what you want to contribute, but the idea is that you want to know what that number is and then make sure that it aligns with what you are looking to contribute.
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Number is, and then make sure that it aligns with what you are looking to contribute.
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Okay, a good company match is a game changer.
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That is a huge game changer.
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I mean, we've had friends that have, some have matches company matches six 7% now, yeah, I saw somebody on Instagram recently, another content person and they get an 8% match.
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I was like holy crap, where do you work?
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I need to work there.
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And so what that means is that for every, if you have an 8% match at a hundred percent, that means that for every dollar that you're putting in up to 8% of your salary, your employer is going to contribute that also.
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So you're getting 16%.
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I mean, that's no, it's significant, that's super significant, I would say that is the number one benefit of a 401k plan is if your employer provides a great match, because it's essentially free money.
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Yeah, that's something I've always told Brandon.
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Hey, in my next job and I get four and a half percent, but in my next job I'm like man, let me get up to that seven 8% mark, because that's a game changer.
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And knowing that information can be one of the things that when you're looking for a new career or in a new job and you're looking, you have maybe a couple of different options that you might want to look at their benefits package and see what their match is, because that might be the tipping factor for one employer over another.
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Now, since we are talking about the match, we do also want to talk about knowing what the vesting period is for that match, because you're not necessarily entitled to 100% of your employer's match on day one of the matching it.
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Yeah, so normally what I've seen is more like a four-year vesting schedule and normally that's a little bit over the course of that time.
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So you have a gradual vesting schedule.
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So after you've been there for one year you might be entitled to 25% of what your employer has contributed to your plan.
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Second year you're entitled to 50%, third year, 75% and so on until you reach 100%.
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And then afterwards, once you reach that 100% mark and if you were to change jobs, then you would be 100% entitled to that money that your employer has matched.
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But if you leave prior to that 100%, then you might be entitled to none or just a certain percentage based upon the vesting schedule.
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Right.
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So those are things that you want to look at, especially if you are getting a high match.
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You know, maybe you wait until you hit year four to leave that company.
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If you're going to be starting that job search over so that you're not close to it.
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Yeah, so that you're not missing out on that money.
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Right, I mean people call it free money, but really it should be considered part of your total compensation package.
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But if it's the matter of like, hey, let me leave six months early or I miss out on you know $60,000, or whatever it might be, those are things that you need to look into, because you know again, we never want to leave money on the table and the thing is, too, is that sometimes the employer match could be a little bit complicated in regards to how they word it.
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They could be like you know up to the first, 2% will match it at 100% the next 2% will match at 50%, so it can be a little bit wordy in regards to how they actually do it, but the idea is that you make sure that you understand what your employer match is and do your best to take full advantage of that.
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Have you been listening to our podcast and wondering how am I really doing with my money?
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Am I doing the right things with my investments?
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Am I on track to reach my financial goals?
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What could I be doing better?
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If you answered yes to any of these questions, then it's time for you to reach out to Brandon to schedule your free yes, I said free 30-minute introduction conversation to see how his services could help make you the more confident moneymaker we know you could be.
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What are you waiting for?
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It's literally free and at the very least, you'll walk away feeling more empowered and confident about your financial future.
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Link is in our show notes.
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Go schedule your call today.
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Yeah, people talk about target date funds and how is the 401k invested?
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Can we talk about that?
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So with how the 401k plan is invested.
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Let's just say you're auto enrolled into the plan and normally what they do is that they auto enroll you into a fund also.
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So normally the auto enrollment fund that they choose is what's called a target date fund.
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Now, what a target date fund is is that it takes the approximate year in which you'd become retirement age, so approximately the year that you would turn 60 years old.
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All right.
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Now, as you are further away from that date, the target day fund is more aggressive.
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Reason being is that you have time on your side, so you want to go ahead and take advantage of that time and be more aggressive in your investment so that you can actually maximize your growth.
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Now, as you get closer and closer to that date of retirement, the target date fund goes from being more aggressive to becoming more conservative, because the idea is that you're getting closer to retirement and you don't want to take as much risk because you want to protect the growth that you had over that time.
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And it's not a terrible investment by any means.
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You know, it's one of those ones where you just set it and leave it and it's not going to treat you terrible because it's going to do what you, overall, would need to do over the course of, you know, your work life when it comes to managing that investment from a asset allocation with the risk standpoint.
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But can you choose to be more aggressive if you wanted to be, even if your time horizon is getting closer to that retirement age?
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100.
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You have full flexibility to choose from any of the funds that are offered within your 401k plan.
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Now, do keep in mind that you do have limitations in regards to what you can invest in, only based off of what your employer plan allows you to.
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So this is one of the things I've seen where there's a variance.
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If you work at an employer that puts more money into their 401k plan maybe at a bigger corporation then you may have more options to invest in as compared to if you're at a smaller company.
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You might have less options, and the reason being is that that variance does have a cost associated with it from the employer standpoint, as far as how much money they're paying for the plan.
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But you need to also understand what are your options, what do you have available to invest in, and also understanding what the difference means of all the different investment options that you have.
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One of the things that I normally do is that you know, with just this 401k plan, we went more aggressive than a target date fund.
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Reason being is that the percentage of allocation that was towards more aggressive, like equity stocks, in comparison to what was allocated towards more conservative, like bonds, fixed income.
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We want it to be more aggressive, because I think that we can be more aggressive with the time horizon that we have before we would even access that account.
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So what we and it has served me well because when I log into my 401k I'm always very impressed with where it is based on what I'm actually contributing.
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And again, I do get a four and a half percent match.
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But I'm glad that we went aggressive.
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Yeah.
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So the way that a target day, like kind of the old rule of thumb in regards to how aggressive you should be versus how conservative you should be, is that, based upon your age, give or take a couple numbers, that's how much you should be conservative.
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It's kind of what they would say.
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So if you're 30 years old, maybe a 70-30 split.
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If you're 40, maybe like a 35, between 35 and 40 being more conservative and then 60, 65 being more aggressive.
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But I honestly think that you can be a hundred percent equity at the age that we're at.
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You know we're 20 years or so away from retirement age, where we would access these accounts.
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I think that's plenty of time to be more aggressive and take advantage of the growth.
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The difference is is that obviously I do this for a living, so I look at this and I make changes as needed.
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As compared to the average person who doesn't have the knowledge that I have nor the time to do necessarily all these things.
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A target fund might serve you.
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Perfect, because it does all that.
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You understand these nuances about your account and what's available to you, before you forget it, after you've set it.
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And you should be able to find all this information through your online portal for your provider of your 401k plan.
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You should be able to find out you know what the employer matches.
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You should be able to find out what um investment options are available to you also, and they also give you information as far as you can click on these different options and they give you a little bit more information about what the fund does, how it performs, historic performance, stuff of that nature, which can be a little daunting to read through, but I think it's a good practice to at least look at it.
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And if you have questions obviously you listen to this podcast you can reach out to me.
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I help people with their 401k plans all the time, but knowing where the information is and understanding that you do have options is the big thing that I want to stress.
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Yeah, what about people talk about pre-tax, after-tax, roth contributions?
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What's all that about?
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All right.
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So there are a few different ways that you can contribute money to your 401k plan.
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Now what I mean that is that the one way that the only way you can contribute money is going to be coming out of your paycheck.
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But there's different ways that the money would go into the account.
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So the one that most people are familiar with is the pre-tax contribution.
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So what that means is that the money going into your 401k plan or your 403b is taken out of your paycheck prior to taxes, so that money going in has not been taxed.
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Once it goes into your 401k plan, it's growing and while it's in there it's called tax deferred, which means that you are not paying taxes on it while it's in the account and growing.
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Now when you do get taxed is when you reach retirement age and you start to withdraw money.
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The amount that you withdraw will be taxed at ordinary income tax rates.
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At that time, whatever the tax rates are All right.
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So that's the one that most people are familiar with.
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But there are some other ways to contribute to your 401k plan.
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Most people nowadays, honestly, may have the option to contribute Roth contributions to their 401k plan.
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Now, most people are familiar with some aspect of how a Roth IRA works.
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This is very similar, the number one difference being is that with a Roth IRA, in order to contribute just a traditional way to a Roth IRA, there are income limitations and if you make you know, quote, unquote too much money, then you can't contribute directly to a Roth IRA.
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I know there's other ways to do it, but that's not what we're talking about right now.
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So the nice thing with a Roth 401k plan contribution is that there are no income limits.
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So it doesn't matter how much you make, you can contribute Roth to your 401k plan if that is an option available to you through your employer.
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And to kind of refresh your mind on how that works is that instead of the money coming out of your paycheck pre-tax, it's going to come out of your paycheck after tax.
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So you are have already paid taxes on the contribution going into your 401k, 403b.
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All right, while the money's in there, it's growing tax deferred.
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And then the nice thing is when you pull it out in retirement, you are not taxed, obviously, on the amount that you put in, because you've already paid taxes on that, but you're not taxed on the growth of it either.
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And that's a big thing.
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So that sounds like a really good option, if it is available, because you're hoping that the money that you're making now is less than the money that you would make, you know for us it would be, let's say, 20 years from now, when we are at retirement age, because of course, you want your salary to grow Right.
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Well, the thing so here's one of the benefits I would say from my viewpoint when it comes to pre-tax savings for retirement and post and Roth savings is that I like to control as many things as I can, and if I can take out an unknown, then I want to take that out.
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So one of the hard parts for us is that 20, 25 years from now, I don't know exactly what tax brackets are going to look like.
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I have no idea.
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Um, I would honestly say more than likely they're going to increase.
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The reason being is that if you look at you know taxes over the past 800 years, we're almost at like a historic low when it comes to taxes.
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I know it doesn't feel like it for most people, but just strictly from a tax standpoint, income tax standpoint we are at historic lows yeah, it definitely doesn't feel that way well, that's because things cost more.
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It's not from the tax standpoint, but but taxes themselves, as far as the percentage that they're taking of your income, is at lows, while we're still having all time national debt highs and everything like that.
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I find it hard to believe that income taxes are going to go lower.
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As compared to with our parents.
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When they were our age, and even you know earlier than that, you know the eighties and nineties they had a higher marginal tax rate and so they've kind of won out.
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You know they didn't pay taxes on the money back then and now they're paying taxes on it in retirement in a lower tax environment.
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I don't necessarily think that's going to be the same case for us.
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So, I honestly think it's.
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Honestly, though, I think it's.
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I think it's great to have both options.
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So have some pre-tax money and have some Roth, because it provides you flexibility.
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And the nice thing is that even if you're contributing Roth contributions to your 401k plan and you have an employer match, your employer is going to contribute pre-tax because they're taking their tax deduction.
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They're going to make you pay taxes on it.
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So even if you're just contributing Roth, you're going to have pre-tax money in there if you have an employer match okay, so can you do a Like if you?
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have an option you can do pre-tax and Roth.
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Yeah, it doesn't have to be all or none.
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So like, if you want to contribute, say you want to contribute 6% you can contribute 3% to Roth and 3% to pre-tax.
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Well, yeah, is that something you see often with your clients, or?
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I mean not really to be honest with you, because it costs the employer more.
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No, no no, you can do it, that's not the problem it's just a matter of making things as simple as possible for people.
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Oh, and too many choices sometimes.
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Yes, people just overthink things.
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Yeah.
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So like we look at their situation.
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no-transcript when you get into retirement.
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as far as flexibility standpoint, Now there is one other way that you contribute to a retirement plan, like a 403B 401K, and that's called after-tax.
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Now I do want to specify that after-tax and Roth are not the same, because I've come across numerous people who thought that they were contributing Roth and they were actually contributing after tax.
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Okay, what's the difference?
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So the main difference is is that the after tax is mainly for after tax and honesty is for high income earners, where they're already kind of maxing out their contributions to their other accounts, their 401k plan, and they want to do above the normal limit.
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So the after tax allows you to do that, because it's money that's already been taxed when it's going to the account.
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Differences is that you will also be taxed on the growth.
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Oh, okay.
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But it allows you to put money away additionally.
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Okay.
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Above the normal contribution limits to a 401k plan, a 403b.
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Well, like it's also not to get too much in the weeds, it's.
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Some plans also allow for you to do what's called an in-plan Roth conversion and sometimes you use that after tax bucket to do a Roth conversion.
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Got it.
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But I don't need to go down that path.
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That's more of a complicated one that we can do one on later on.
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This is just to let you know that there are different ways you can contribute to your retirement accounts.
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Yeah, no, that's good to know.
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I don't know that that's a common thing that people you know.
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One of the things that people always talk about is like do you get a match?
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But I feel like that's really where the conversation stops.
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Is there a contribution max annually for what you can put into your 401k?
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Yeah, there is a contribution max each year and for this year, 2024, the contribution max is 23,000.
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If you are under the age of 50, if you are 50 years old or older, then you are actually allowed to contribute an additional 75.
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Oh, nice Cause they want to get you to that retirement yeah, just making sure, for example, it's for people like, for example, if you maybe weren't maxing out in previous years or you just weren't contributing as much as you would like to.
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This gives you a little bit more wiggle room to put more money away so that you're in a better place for when you retire how kind, um.
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What about if you don't want to wait or can't wait until retirement and you need access to all that money you've been hoarding away?
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What are our options?
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So there are a few different options that may be available.
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So I'm a first focus on options available to you know more focus on people around our age.
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So one of the things you might want to take a look at is see, does your 401k plan allow for what's called a 401k plan loan?
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So what that does is allows you to borrow money from your 401k plan and then you have to pay it back.
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All right, so you're borrowing money from yourself.
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Correct.
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That's nice.
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It's nice, but it's not one of those things where, like I would advise people to constantly use this Because, for example, say you borrow, borrow ten thousand dollars from your 401k plan.
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You take a loan out while it's not in the account, it's not there to grow right, you're missing out on the growth correct yeah, we've done a previous episode on this yes
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taking a loan from your 401k so the idea is just, once again, knowing what the features of your plan and in case you need to use it, because there might be a scenario where you just have to use this loan and it's nice to know if it's available to you.
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So you want to know, hey, do I have availability of a loan, what is the amount that I'm able to take a loan out on?
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And then also, how many loans am I able, am I allowed, to have out at one time, because some plans allow for maybe one loan, some allow for two and some don't even have that option.
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But the idea is that you just want to know beforehand, just in case.
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Yeah, that makes sense.
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Now there are some other ways that you know.
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If you are in a bad situation and you need money from your plan, you can possibly access it.
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There is something you know often with these plans called a hardship withdrawal, where you are going through some form of a qualified hardship, and they normally have the details of what qualifies spelled out in the plan, but it would allow you to access a certain amount of money within your plan.
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The thing is, though, that it is still a withdrawal, so when you do a withdrawal from your 401k plan 403b prior to being 59 and a half years old, most of the time you are going to incur a 10% penalty in addition to paying taxes If that money is pre-tax.
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Okay, so penalty and taxes yeah.
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And the taxes aren't really the biggest part to focus on, because you're going to pay tax on at some point.
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It's an additional 10% penalty, which is huge.
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Okay, now, um, you do also are also sometimes allowed access to um money within your 401k plan.
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If, for example, first time home purchase, they might allow you to go ahead and take out a withdrawal for that as well.
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There would be no penalty associated with that, but you may have that available to you through your plan.
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Only for a first-time home buyer.
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Correct Interesting.
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Well, that's lovely, very nice.
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Okay, what if I leave my employer?
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I know people have said leaving your 401k with an old employer is like leaving money with an ex.
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Well, I'm going to simply once again that it depends, all right.
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What it really depends on is how old you are when you leave the employer and what are your plans for after you leave the employer.
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So, for example, if you or I left our employer, I would probably recommend rolling it over to an IRA, whether that's a Roth IRA or a traditional IRA, based upon the type of money that you contribute to the account.
00:22:55.900 --> 00:23:03.977
But rolling over to an IRA an individual retirement account and the main reason for that is that one provides you significantly more options to invest.
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You know you have that limitation to.
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I think at most I've seen maybe in the plan is 20 options to invest in, and that's a more robust plan if it has 20 options as compared to thousands of options that are available to you in the market.
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So you have way more options available to you.
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Also, it's just easier to keep track of from a consolidation standpoint, to roll into an IRA.
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If you left one employer roll into the IRA, you leave your next employer rolled into the same IRA.
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Makes it easy to keep track of.
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Okay.
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Now, the one caveat I would say is that, depending on what age you are when you leave your employer because, for example, if you're someone that's maybe 55 years old when you leave your employer, you might want to keep it at that employer's 401k plan because you might want to utilize the 55 rule- oh, where you can actually access it at the age of 55.
